The popular theatre play Children’s Injuries, starring the outstanding acting duo Vuk Kostić and Sloboda Mićalović, was performed last night on the stage of the Istočno Sarajevo Cultural Center in two time slots due to enormous audience interest, as tickets for both performances sold out within just a few hours.
After the performance, actress Sloboda Mićalović said that the best testimony about the audience and the play itself is the fact that it was performed twice on the same evening.
“This fact truly brings us great joy, and I can see that the audience responded beautifully. It was not easy for us to perform such a play twice in one evening, because it is emotionally demanding and requires constant transitions from one situation to another, from laughter to tears in just a few seconds. The audience breathed with us, and I must admit that I did not expect anything less, because I know the audience here very well. We have performed here before, both with theatre productions and at film festivals,” Mićalović said.
She added that the childhood injuries the play speaks about are carried by each of us, that they are incurable and must be accepted.
“Love is the only thing that can heal those injuries, but it also carries them. A greater mistake is to give up on love,” Mićalović said.
She emphasized that every role changes her in a certain way and that she never believed a role could be completely separate from herself.
“The circumstances are different, but the essence is that the audience should not notice that I am acting. I have to pull that role and character onto myself for it to function. I filter my own experiences, emotions, darkness, scars through the role, and only I will know where that is. That energetic exchange then becomes a kind of therapy for me,” Mićalović concluded.
Further guest performances agreed
The director of the Cultural Center, Nikolina Pandurević, said that this play set a record.
“It has never happened that one play is performed twice in one day. That says everything about the audience’s interest. The leading actors of their generation were on stage, and it was an honor and a pleasure to host this play,” Pandurević said.
She added that audience reactions were fantastic and spoke for themselves.
Pandurević also noted that additional guest performances have already been agreed.
“The actors are extremely satisfied with this stage. They truly love this small stage because it allows close interaction with the audience and microphones are not needed. Great names have performed here before, and that will continue in the future,” she emphasized.
About the play
The play is directed by Ivan Vuković and based on a text by the well-known American playwright Joseph Radjiv.
Children’s Injuries is defined as a black comedy with elements of melodrama, following the specific relationship between two protagonists.
The story portrays a platonic relationship between a man and a woman who meet at different stages of life, from the age of eight up to 38. Interestingly, most of these encounters take place in a medical clinic, where the characters tend to both their physical and deep psychological wounds, their “childhood injuries.”
This warm human story ranks among the most-watched productions in the region in recent years. Its importance is further confirmed by the fact that prominent critics last year named it one of the three best plays on the Belgrade repertoire.
Although they form relationships with other people throughout their lives, the characters portrayed by Mićalović and Kostić never give up on each other, making this play deeply intimate and easily recognizable for every individual in the audience.
Source: Glas Srpske
